Supreme Court strikes down limits on campaign contributions

The Supreme Court has once again equated "freedom of speech" with "freedom to spend."  By siding with the plaintiff in McCutcheon vs FEC, the court has now overturned aggregate contribution limits—the total that an individual could donate to federal candidates, a national party committee, and non-party political committees. These existing limits were already quite generous—$120,000, itself more than twice what the average US family makes in a year. Now the court has pushed us even further toward a political system where a tiny number of extremely wealthy individuals can influence public policy by making, or threatening to withhold, donations to candidates, parties, and organizations. 

This is another step in the ongoing attack on our democracy. In their 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision, the Supreme Court majority gave the green light to corporations spending unlimited amounts of money to influence our elections. It is not surprising that this ruling was very unpopular with Americans of all political affiliations. In the McCutcheon case, the attack on our democracy continues – this time through a potential gutting of one of the last remaining pillars of our campaign finance legal structure, aggregate contribution limits. 

What Americans want is for our voices, and our votes, to count. Everyone's voice should be sacred in our democracy, no matter our age, race, or the number of zeros on our paycheck. There is growing momentum across the country for pro-democracy reforms. Sixteen states and more than 500 towns and cities – including New York and Los Angeles – have gone on record in support of amending the Constitution to ensure our elections and democracy remain in the hands of the people.   

In the face of the influx of big money into our elections, the integrity of our democracy needs protection. The McCutcheon decision's effect of removing the aggregate contribution limit is that the richest donors can pass tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to support a single candidate through joint fundraising committees and PACs. And when big donors can find ways to give eye-popping sums of money to candidates, the potential for corruption is obvious. That's not the kind of democracy we want to live in. 

We must reclaim our democracy from the super-rich.  That will require amending the US constitution to state that campaign contributions are not "free speech" (which is what Shaun McCutcheon is saying). The "We the People Amendment" (H.J. Resolution 29) would do this -- and fix the other big problem our democracy faces, corporations hijacking our democracy by claiming to be "people."